Guilty Pleasures #14 - Skyfall

Ah, James Bond, an icon of action, suspense and damsels in distress, and to be honest, despite my film preferences, 007 was never really something I grew attached to like I have with superheroes. But my curiosity piqued with Skyfall. Due to not booking a ticket online, I never saw it in the Cinema, but I was quick to get a DVD copy.

Production involved in this film looks quite complicated. MGM, the producers of the films was undergoing financial troubles and the project, which had started just after the release of Quantum of Solice, was suspended. During the suspension, the original writer of the story, Peter Morgan departed leaving Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan to finish it off. In fact filming didn’t begin until November 2011.

These delays didn’t hamper the success of the film. Made over a billion dollars world-wide, the highest of any Bond film, on your average blockbuster budget ($150-200m) and getting praised by most critics. However, I stand by this as a Guilty Pleasure because despite all this, the story has some pretty big flaws.

Before I begin the review, I will say this. I have not watched any other of Daniel Craig’s Bond movies, in fact this is the only Bond movie I’ve watched unless it’s a few bits I’ve seen on television. I am not reviewing this as a 50^th Anniversary for Bond, I’m watching it as a movie and it will stand or fall on its own merits.  With that out of the way, let’s take a look.

4 issue test #5 - S.H.I.E.L.D.

“Inspired by the hit TV series” Marvel’s SHIELD comic follows the outings of Agent Coulson and his crew of SHIELD agents in the much bigger Marvel Universe than the cinematic one. Is this series worth picking up? Let’s take a look at the first 4 issues and find out

TV Retrospective: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 1 episodes 4-6 review

We're barely a week off the last one, but it's time once again to take a look at the next set of episodes of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD

#18 The Fall of Green Arrow

Bad stories spawn bad follow-ups. So here we are, this month I’ll be dealing with the two follow-up stories of Justice League: Cry for Justice (and Superboy #0, man I'm doing a lot of comics this month).  And oh man, do the both suck. We’ll be tackling the story of the fate of Green Arrow first, because it’s the better of the two. Not saying it’s any good, it isn’t, but…

So after the events of Cry for Justice, a lot was up in the air about the fate of Green Arrow (Oliver Queen and Red Arrow (Roy Harper) the two who had been most affected by the book. The concluding stories from the Green Arrow book (which was relaunched shortly afterwards under the “Brightest Day” moniker) and the one-shot Justice League: Rise and Fall special dealt with Green Arrow’s fate, setting up he’d be in the relaunched title.

J T Krul was the writer, the same guy who’s responsible for making the Teen Titans (before Scott Lobdell decided to sh*t all over them with the relaunch) good again after the awful run of Felcia D Henderson. What I’m saying is JT Krul is usually a good writer. But anything related to Cry for Justice turns to sh*t, so let’s see exactly what we have here.

TV Retrospective: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 1 episodes 1-3 review

It’s finally time to take a look at the first season of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2 Episodes 11-15 review

With March being used for Spider-man Month, and hoping to minimise my workload, we didn't look at once recurring series during that time. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. returned in March and has run for 5 episodes so far since its return. This show has not gone on break since it started. So let's revisit our old friends and find out what's happened in the aftermath of the amazing mid-season finale.

Rage Issues Special: ?????????

I have stumbled upon something truly awful here, haven’t I? I went to http://awholenewworldofarronredbeard.weebly.com (I was searching for song lyrics, got lost somewhere) a site which hosts a collection of ‘fanfic’ series. Unlike traditional fanfics, this uses characters from DC, Marvel and some other properties but holds no delusion that it’s cannon to any particular show or in-comics, in fact, it’s part of its own universe.

So what makes this story so bad. Let’s dig into the opening 3-parter and find out.